2. Who is responsible?
Indhold
2. Who is responsible?¶
Having seen how CO2 is the main driver of global warming, let’s dive deeper into who are and have been responsible for the emissions
Which countries emit the most CO2 today?¶
Let’s start by investigating how CO2 emissions have developed since the mid-1700s. Hover above the lines to see which countries have the largest share in the annual CO2 emissions.
CO2 emissions have been on an exponential rise since the industrial revolution. Many countries have a share in the current level of CO2 emissions. Although the top three most CO2 emitting countries are China, the United States and India. The countries that have a large CO2 emission are either heavily industrialised countries such as China or western countries with a very energy consuming lifestyle such as the United States.
From the plot of annual CO2 emissions we see that only four countries (China, the US, India and Russia) contribute to over half of the world’s CO2 emissions. To further investigate these countries and see how they compare to neighbouring countries take a look at the interactive worldmap below. Drag the handle in the timeline or click on the play button to see how the distribution of CO2 emission has changed from 1990 to 2020.
Who emitted the most CO2 in total?¶
The plot of total CO2 emissions per country reveals that China is the world’s largest CO2 emitter. However, it hasn’t always been that way. Take a look at the plot below which shows percent-wise cumulative CO2 emissions per country. Again, hover above each line to the data for each country.
When trying to place the responsibility for the current level of CO2 emissions western countries often point to the eastern industrialised countries lack of action to reduce CO2 emissions - and that upcomming industrialization has to be green. On the other hand, eastern countries argue that it is easier for western countries to reduce CO2 emissions due to their wealth and that they have been historically responsible for the unrestrained growth of CO2 emissions which has brought us to the climate changes today.
When looking at the cumulative distribution of CO2 emission as percentage, one might at first sight get an indication that the United Kingdom are the ones responsible. And up untill the 20st century, they sure was the major polluters. But one has to bare in mind when looking at the total cumulated CO2 levels of 2020, they may have been the major polluters previously but the impact is relative small today compared to the bigger countries.
Looking at the next graph, it becomes clear that one should only regard the recent most years.
Looking at CO2 per capita¶
It can furthermore be argued that looking at the CO2 emissions per country is an unfair way of placing the responsibility for the worlds CO2 emissions since the largest CO2 emitter China is also the country with the largest population. Investigate the worldmap below by dragging the timeline. Follow the blue arrows to investigate why Mongolia and Saudi Arabia in 2020 have large CO2 emissions per capita.
When looking at the 2020 distribution of CO2 emissions per capita China is no longer the largest CO2 emitter but rather countries such as Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the US and Canada. Countries such as Mongolia and Saudi Arabia mainly have a large CO2 emission per capita because of their massive coal and oil productions.
In conclusion, it is difficult to point exactly to who is responsible as global warming indeed is a global phenomenon caused by many different countries and factors. So all developed and industrialized countries need to take action in order to reduce the CO2 emissions in time with even more ambitious political initiatives.
Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/climate-change/causes-climate-change_en